Indefinite lifespan possible in 20 years, expert predicts

January 22, 2013

New Google hire and renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil sums up how technologies might play out over the next two decades with this claim: “If you remain in good health for 20 more years, you may never die.”

Why don’t people see the absurdity of these kind of claims? “If you remain in good health for 20 more years, you may never die.” FM-2030 said that back around 1990, yet he went into cryo in 2000, and plenty of today’s people who have stayed in good health since 1990 will similarly die according to the actuarial tables.

If would make somewhat more sense to say, “If you can stay in good health for the next 200 years, you’ve at least lived those 200 years. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.”

About 50 million people die each year; mostly from age-related illnesses; but the vast majority of Earth’s 7+ billion do not die.

Kurzweil’s statement: “If you live 20 more years, you may never die”; is based on an idea that life-extending biotech and nanomedicine technologies will become available to ‘bridge’ one into a future with life-saving miracles, such as artificial intelligence advances that may provide ‘mind-copying’ and replacing much of our biology with non-biological (mostly nanomaterials); immortal components that self-repair when damaged.

Much technology development must happen before humanity can break the 122-year maximum lifespan record, but at the rate of today’s breakthroughs, indefinite lifespan can one day become reality.